Hi,
has anyone got any data on the UM8297 floppy disk controller IC?
I found one on a tiny ISA board in the loft the other day (labelled
"FDC-III"). I was hoping it might provide a little more flexibility in
reading non-PC floppies on a PC machine (specifically Acorn BBC - none
of the spare PC motherboards I have kicking around happen to have floppy
controller ICs that do this)
Using the ISA board in a PC with the on-board floppy disk controller
disabled, the drives seek on startup as expected but I can't get any
data from floppies put into them (known-good MSDOS-format disks,
known-good drives, and a known-good data cable). Tried using both DOS
and Linux.
A few thoughts:
1) The controller IC might be broken; I don't know its history. The fact
that it's doing a seek on startup makes me think it's at least
semi-alive though.
2) The motherboard fdc IC might somehow get in the way for data
transfers, despite being disabled in the BIOS (bad design if so!)
3) The chip might need some specific setup from DOS before it'll work
correctly.
4) The chip might be expecting a specific floppy drive type or types to
be attached, or set up in a certain way. I've only tried known-good high
density 5.25" and 3.5" drives so far.
5) Maybe the IC doesn't emulate any kind of standard PC floppy
controller chip, and needs a whole complex driver to function. Yuck.
I'm hoping on 3) or 4) at the moment, with 3) being more useful to me!
If I fit a 5.25" drive say, and set it up as a 3.5" drive in the
motherboard BIOS, then the system halts on startup with a floppy disk
failure as expected - so it does look like the BIOS is trying to talk to
the ISA board with the IC on it and knows that it's there.
There's very little on the ISA board itself - the IC itself, a pair of
7406 chips, and some clock circuitry. No configuration on the board
whatsoever.
As I say, maybe the board isn't strictly DOS-compatible without a
driver, or designed to do some oddball task.
cheers
Jules
(waiting for hangover to go and eyes to start working correctly...)
I was cleaning my office as I prepare to retire, and found several DECtapes
with programs I wrote for a PDP-9 in the mid 70's. I have no listings
available, but would like to read these programs if possible.
--
I have a working DECtape system that can read these. I'm located in
Silicon Valley.
On Dec 26, 0:19, tim lindner wrote:
> In the data sheet, under the section "1. Non-IBM Formats" it says:
>
> "Note that the Index Mark is not required by the 179X."
>
> What does this mean exactly? How can a track contain any useful
> imformation without a Index Mark?
The Index Mark is a single small block of data recorded on the disk,
that occurs once per track, right after the index hole; it's NOT the
index pulse from the hardware, and NOT a sector header and it is
optional. Lots of controllers don't put it there unless told to.
Given that any sensible controller will see the index pulse from the
drive interface, the Index Mark pattern is unneccessary -- but some
controllers do expect to see it.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
Back in October of 1998 there was a new video game magazine called fuse that
was shipped on VHS tapes and was billed as "The Video Game Magazine of the
Future". I just found "Issue 1 Volume 1 Nov/Dec 1998" over in my bus but it
was missing a bonus promotional copy of fuse in the box. Does anyone have
this bonus issue? I did a google and could not find anything on the magazine
I guess they didn't last very long.
I've just run across a partially-working Heath ID-5001 and am trying to get
it do something useful. At the very least, the flourescent bulb PSU is
out (the TIP41 gets *really* hot in a couple of minutes), and the front
bezel has some cracks. The rest of the unit looks fine, though.
With the top off, and room light shining in, it's possible to read the
display. I can set the baud rate and the date/time from the front panel,
but not much else.
I've already run across an LED back-light scheme, so in the long-run, I can
fix that. I've also seen a page on how to manufacture temperature sensors
with non-obsolete parts. I could really use some docs on how to calibrate
the unit (there are several pots on the CPU board), and how the other sensors
work.
Anyone on the list have one of these?
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 27-Dec-2003 20:20 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -6.5 F (-21.4 C) Windchill -38.4 F (-39.1 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 12 kts Grid 340 Barometer 692.4 mb (10163. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
Anyone out here ever have or currently have a PCjr with the RIM Adapter setup? I have 2 types of modem-slotted SCSI cards, onne being from Rim Electronics, and the other from an unknown maker. I have HardBIOSjr cartridge, the ST-225 HDD's for the Rim Electronics SCSI card, but am unable to get jr to recognize them. Any ideas from someone who used this setup before?
Brian Heise
---------------------------------
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I have seen the model 2 instructions and they make refference to an archaic
OS known as Dos 2.0 The card is not a dongle but
provides Hardware encryption on the fly.
----- Original Message -----
From: Rick
To: cctech(a)classiccmp.org
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2003 4:53 PM
Subject: ID this card: MPPi Ltd
Your mystery card is a security device
MPPi, Ltd., 2200 Lehigh Ave., Glenview, IL 60025 Phone: 312-998-8401
Google a bit it only took 2 attempts for this one.
Device was known as pc-lock, you apparrently have the first model
pc lock II is much better put together.